‘Millennial Male’ Alert: Conde Nast Buys Pitchfork Media

“This brings a a very passionate audience of Millennial males into our roster.”

Frank Santarpia, chief digital officer, Condé Nast.

If there’s one thing that advertisers say more than ‘Millennial,’ it’s ‘Millennial Male,’ and that’s great news for anyone catering to that crowd. According to an announcement issued this (Tuesday) morning, Condé Nast has just purchased Pitchfork Media, the long-running indie music bible that skews younger male. “This reinforces our commitment to building Condé Nast’s premium digital network, focusing on distinctive editorial voices and engaging high-value millennial audiences,” Condé Nast CEO Bob Sauerberg told staffers in an email.

The purchase price hasn’t been disclosed.

The question is whether Pitchfork loses any ‘indie cred’ from the Condé Nast acquisition, but readers are probably less likely to notice. Condé Nast undoubtedly loves Pitchfork for its hip — and oftentimes hipster — crowd that includes a ton of white males. And when it comes to age demographic, the largest chunk is, wait for it… Millennial Males.

Similar to other ‘slow-cooker’ culture influencers like Vice, Pitchfork actually started back in the mid-90s as a humble blog (or even ‘zine’). Indeed, the internet was just on its starting blocks when Pitchfork was conceptualized, though its impact these days is almost entirely digital with an audience of roughly 6 million monthly uniques. Fittingly, the Pitchfork will now report into Fred Santarpia, chief digital officer of Condé Nast, who told the New York Times that the deal will bring “a very passionate audience of millennial males into our roster”.

That said, Pitchfork does have some offline properties worth noting, particularly its live events in Chicago and Paris. That’s part of a broader and evolving strategy for ‘digital native’ publications like Pitchfork, with a pulp-based quarterly also part of the non-digital portfolio.

7 Responses

Banner ad revenue isn’t that significant. Even for sites as big as pitchfork, its unlikely they were earning more than 5-10k per month from that at the most. Also, adblock may be popular but it doesn’t work on mobile and a majority of people do not use it even on desktop.

So, what does ‘pay through the nose’ amount to, would you say…..$20 million? $200M? keep in mind recent valuations for other millennium publications like gawker, business insider, are pegged north of $400M these days….